We are back home again from our weekend away. We had a lovely time at the family gathering it is so nice to be together for Sunday lunch and a catch up; and show off the new arrival. A friend had made this cake to celebrate my daughter’s 10th wedding anniversary. Little L wore her new sparkly party dress and everyone had a good time.
But it is good to be home again and hopefully at home now for a while. The recent trips up and down to North Yorkshire (about a 2 hour journey) have taken their toll and I am feeling rather weary at the moment and have only just finished all the unpacking and putting away once more, but not the catching up with finances and washing.
It is bitterly cold here and wet with it… and gloomy – I have the lights on in the house and I have put the heating on this afternoon for an hour; it certainly looks wintry out there to me.
I made Tomato soup yesterday and more soup today, a minted green soup with watercress, spinach, lettuce and pea. We had some for lunch and I have put the rest in the freezer for another day. Hot soup on a cold day is perfect for lunch. It was too cold to be cleaning out the freezer today so I have postponed this job yet again for another day.
I did manage to cut out the paper for the eight selection bags – there was just enough – and I will make these into bags tomorrow morning when the light is better.
Yesterday we went to Sainsbury’s to do the grocery shopping. I have planned a few easy meals for this week whilst I catch up with myself; Shepherds pie with lentils and Vegetable Lasagne which will do two nights each and then an omelette and salad for Sunday when the oven will be needed for the Christmas cake. It wasn’t a big shop as we are coming to the end of this month’s pension allowance – our next payment will be this Friday though I am intending that the four weekly pension amount stretches to cover the whole of a calendar month and that way the 13th payment can go into savings. As long as we keep within the £160 a week then we are doing OK and so far so good but it does take a lot of effort.
Starting in January I will be trying to save 10% of the pension – £64 every 4 weeks amounts to a healthy £832.00 for the year plus the £200 fuel allowance will give us £1000, so I will need to cut costs further to do this. I always saved when we had a wage so I don’t really want to stop now but I have needed time to get used to living on a pension and to see how far it will stretch. Unfortunately, it is not very elastic.
I am finding food expensive even though we make most of our own meals, waste very little and do not eat meat or fish. As you know we eat organic foods were we can and especially fruit and veg as I like the fact they are not sprayed with pesticides and they have been farmed in a way that does not harm either me or the environment; I don’t compromise on this even if it costs me more…and generally it does! It is a constant battle against rising prices or shrinking products.
I keep getting vouchers at Sainsbury’s for bonus Nectar points but only if I spend over £100 – which I don’t. Waitrose have sent me a coupon for £22 off a £110 shop. This we might use nearer Christmas and buy one of their rooted trees again.
This month has been heavy on gifts and fuel costs too. Travelling up and down to North Yorkshire is expensive and there is no easy way to reduce this when a third of our immediate family live a couple of hours away, other than not seeing them. We always make sandwiches and a flask for the journey up there but are often forced to buy a Costa toastie and a drink on our return and motorway services prices are much inflated so as well as the fuel cost being high the snacks we bought when travelling was also an unavoidable expense. 
Luckily I am able to cut the costs of the gifts by recycling unwanted items and taking advantage of sales. We also sold 3 unwanted items on eBay this week so have gained £38 in my PayPal account which has boosted the kitty. Another saving of £5.80 was the voucher for a free hot drink and scone at John Lewis when we went to buy my daughter’s gift and because we went to the Cheadle branch the parking was free.
We will wait to see what the weather is doing tomorrow before making any definite plans. I have selection bags to make, a freezer to clean and some fresh mushrooms for soup.
where the journey takes me 2 
We have started to shops at Aldi and Lidl and are now very shocked if we venture into Sainsburys and Waitrose at their prices. For motorway return journeys we try to either buy at a supermarket before we leave or come off the motorway to avoid their charges.
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Good idea if you can – we do too on some other journeys but often it is 10pm at night and we find that cafes are generally closed off the motorways in Thirsk and Boroughbridge even in the supermarkets. There are no major towns off the A19/A1 until you hit Leeds so most places are closed so we are a bit stuck with the Wetherby services.
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What a pretty cake and Little L looks delightful in her party dress.
Think you are doing a pretty good job of managing the finances given the challenges that regularly crop up in life. It is a task trying to buy organic produce when the prices are sometimes triple or more of the non-organic. In my case, there is also the added burden of a very poor selection of organic veg at the local supermarkets, too. The only option is to drive 70 miles round trip to a store that offers a larger (and even more expensive) selection. Not an option at all, really. But I try to buy as much organic as I can.
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The organic in Sainsbury’s is pretty good on price and often reduced. The mushrooms are only 10p difference. Because they sell so much of it they can sell it slightly cheaper than a lot of places and they do an organic version of most items. Driving 70 miles would not be an option and I know not all supermarkets have a good range – we are lucky that way.
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that cake is gorgeous! And I really like the look of your soup. I am not much of a soup eater, I often buy something green hoping it’ll be nice, but then when I open the carton or tin, it’s usually a sludgy greyish green and doesn’t taste good. Yours looks totally scrummy.
You are right. Food prices are going up all the time. Asda annoy the heck out of me, they don’t just put things up a couple of pence, or 5 p here and there, no, it’s between 35 and 50 p at a time. I don’t know if they think we are all a bit thick and won’t notice, but I know the prices of things so I notice straightaway and it makes me spit!
Thank you for your recent comments. I do appreciate them. I must apologise though, I kept your blog open most of yesterday because I wanted to comment, but ended up sidetracked and doing things offline and didn’t get round to it. I am hopeless!
xx
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Totally forgiven – re: the commenting – sometimes my blogging is just a load of me waffling along anyway!
I have noticed a couple of things I have bought recently have shrunk in size – some water based baby wipes not only smaller but less in the packet!
I hardly ever buy ready made soup now -I have an intolerance to garlic and it is hard to avoid food with it in these days. I have made mushroom, tomato, leek and potato and the green soup recently and I am now on the third batch of each and keep freezing it ready for those busy days to come.
The little cake was actually better than the professionally made wedding cake they had which at the time was a bit of a disaaster and we had to pull it round best we could.
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I’ve noticed food prices creeping up recently. It definitely makes managing the budget that bit more tricky.
The cake is beautiful and just look at Little L, isn’t she gorgeous. The friend is very talented and I imagine they are very much in demand. X
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The iced flowers were beautiful – until Little L managed to eat one!
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Little L is such a cutie! The gold shoes set off the dress so well. It sound like you are doing a good job keeping a tight hold on the budget. It is so difficult…. and to be able to save too. Good on you.
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…Hoping to save – we will see how it goes in the new year…watch this space!
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